Turtle Pond Report

here are my random details: – please know other than 3 trips to race at Wells and a past tri-guy career, this is my first tru road race – I have a lot to still learn.

GOAL – FINISH ON TWO WHEELS

HOT – and my hydration was NOT mixed to a good ratio

Hills – more than I expected – one long one shorter but Ridge Road x 2

TURNS – learn to pedal thru them better

Thanks to all the advice from you all who are more experienced than I am… Bob, Jay, Jose, Eric, Mary etc….

the course was harder than I expected and Jay nailed it in his blog when he said it was a hard course to get too much good teamwork in. Sean Williams and I did a good job I think of keeping in each others general vicinity and I am sure that we presented well for both in our Crack-O-Dawn kits.

We rolled to the top of the first mile and for lap one I sat in the front 1/4 and watched and listened. taking some short pulls but nothing too aggressive.

the second hill at roughly mile 9 in the loop was steep it made me finally appreciate Ridge Road in Waban 15% – 18% – just spin and do not loose ground. I knew about 4 -6 guys in the 50 rider group but had no idea of what each had, so I just took the temporary pain.

lap 2 – I made sure that I was in the top 5 – 10 of the first climb, but I made the mistake of being too much to the right, which made it hard to move up if needed. I got in a good gear and just spun, I did everything I could not to grind it up. We crested and a guy shouted – “we have a 6 man break” – lets open this up – we picked up the pace, but the break at that point was never more than 10 bike lengths and the lead group of I think 20 got back together. the rest of the lap was fast and pretty much predictable. I made sure that if there was a break, that I kept my head on and chased only if I thought it would amount to anything.

the last 2.5 miles of lap 2 I started to look at the landmarks so that I had an orientation for the final lap.

Lap 3 the climb started at a mellow pace and I was in the top 10 – half way up it started to pick up and I thought about an email that I just got from Mary – basically about enduring the pain, it is easier than chasing. I crested over the top – once over on guy took a flyer and we let him go for about a half a mile – I then picked up my pace and pursued him, hoping a few others would come on. It was just the two of us with 8+ miles of rollers and turns ahead of us – I turned to him and said, “I would rather be caught right now than try a two man break” which we did and soon a field of 15 were back together. The next 5.5 miles were pretty non-eventful a few small breaks a few flyers but mainly a bit of muscle flexing.

Final steep – at this point I was tired and not thrilled with my nutritional intake – I got in a good gear and pushed up and over – Sean and I were together we made a few mini breaks but the group was in a good formation.

With the finish line 750m in sight pace picked up at this point I felt very confident about top 10. At about 400m to go a guy broke left with a sprint well over the yellow line and not within the 200m sprint zone – a bunch of guys called out about it but none the less the pace picked up – I very clearly saw a clear and safe line and took it hammering away to a max heart rate of 175 (very high for me) – I was focused until we were 50m from the finish and the pace car slowed down because we were lapping the race behind us -

I was wheel and wheel with an NRBC guy and apparently took second by about 3 inches… it went to the photo!

Absolutely fried from the race and need to learn about race nutrition

great day overall – I cant wait till Sterling!

Larry Alford